NEW DELHI: The main suspect in the murder of India’s Phoolan Devi was found guilty on Friday, 13 years after the iconic “bandit queen” was gunned down in broad daylight.

Devi, a low-caste heroine who transformed herself from illiterate villager to opposition lawmaker, was shot dead by three masked men outside her home in New Delhi in 2001.

Her turbulent life, captured in Bollywood director Shekhar Kapur’s 1996 movie “Bandit Queen”, comprised many incarnations, from abused child-bride to feared outlaw and finally member of parliament.

The main accused, Sher Singh Rana, had been on trial for 13 years — a duration that is not uncommon in India’s notoriously clogged legal system.

Police said after Devi’s death that Rana had confessed to murdering the 38-year-old politician to avenge the deaths of 22 upper-caste Hindus she killed on Valentine’s Day in 1981.

Devi herself said the Valentine’s Day massacre in the north Indian village of Behmai was in retaliation for her gang rape by upper-caste Hindus.

The judge acquitted 10 other defendants in the case, citing lack of evidence.

“Except Sher Singh Rana, I am acquitting all the accused,” said judge Bharat Parashar, according to the Press Trust of India.

Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2014